


there's a river in me still

by lavendre



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Community: 31_days, M/M, Pining, vague allusions to palmistry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 02:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17779085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavendre/pseuds/lavendre
Summary: “Your life line was always short,” Matoba muttered, spreading Natori’s hand flat. “I could fix that.”Natori wheezed out a laugh, tried to remember the shape of a fist. “You failed to convince me when we were kids. What makes you think you can now?”





	there's a river in me still

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 31-days DW community, August's prompts, 22. _he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts._
> 
> Happy belated Valentine's Day!

 

Matoba Seiji wore the head’s robes with the grace of someone who had done it before. The mean streak at the edge of his mouth he’d worn as a child had turned upward into something cool and practiced, his hair had grown past his shoulders to require he tie it back, and his jaw was sharp and sweet against the line of his robes, sharp enough to turn the heads and interests of everyone in the room.  
  
Natori had missed all of this development. He’d stalled, uncertain, when he’d arrived in the hall and seen what he’d have to face.  
  
Matoba was  _smiling_ , a feudal lord now instead of a boy, and Natori wanted to blow up the entire room and walk away.  
  
“There will be no delay in our conference this summer. While we convene and decide on an avenue, we will continue to host our monthly meetings here--”  
  
The whispers floated around with the collective sigh of a hundred guests or more, pieces of conversation breaking against the shell of his ear:  _did you hear that the Matoba head already nearly lost the eye? Shouldn’t it take a lot longer before someone of his talent breaks?_  
  
“--A lot of traveling to get here, when will they start using the southern estates again?”  
  
“--disgusting that they allow children to run their business,” a man to Natori’s left muttered, the elastic strap that held his mask in place drawing a sharp line across the back of his skull. A woman pressed in beside him, looking harried.

"Don't say that. Don't you remember him? He showed up to all those parties when he was much younger. He's more experienced than half of them--"  
  
Natori excused himself from the gossip and found himself moving south, toward the staircase that wound up gently to the second story. Yukata slipped across the floor around him, feet moving opposite of his, congratulations on everyone's lips. He passed through the door beside the narrow wooden steps and began to climb. To gaze down at everyone was what children did, and he allowed himself to glance back, once, toward the head of the room -- Matoba and his entourage weren’t looking at him or anywhere in his direction. A relief, that.  
  
The air from outside was cool and soothing. He brushed petals off the railing and considered how he had heard a similar story once before and chosen to ignore it then, too.

He hadn't worried though. Summers spent as boys creeping through grass taller than their shoulders, wondering who’s techniques were better, more powerful, who’s blood gave them an advantage over the other, wondering but not knowing who’s curse would kill them first -- it had imparted a sense of certainty in him. He had announced it at the time of his departure, could recall Seiji sitting with his fingers steeped together over his knees, waiting for the punchline to fall, already knowing the answer.

_It won't be me._

(He hadn't thought to add, but considered later, absently, picking over his suitcase, books with notes and letters, words scrawled half-asleep between them: _it doesn't have to be either of us, does it?_ )  
  
\--Still not his problem, but regardless -- Natori could put a name to the feeling now, the same one that dogged after him as he shed his youth and left that whimsical time behind -- left Seiji behind, by extension -- to embrace the sureness of his own future.  
  
Something close to shame.

 

\--

  
  
  
“A minor set-back,” Matoba confessed, “though I admit it’s not what I had anticipated.” He flicked a piece of lint from the sleeve of his yukata, face turning toward the courtyard below, the blooming hydrangeas and the line of willows that stretched along a dark, clear body of water. Red and silver koi in that pond, Natori remembered.  
  
He’d caught Seiji feeding the fish crushed slivers of crackers from a plate of them once. Now, they were large enough to spot from a distance, swimming circles in shallow water, slipping between lily pads and pink blooms before disappearing entirely from sight.  
  
Natori leaned away from the balustrade to his full height. The metal was smooth and cold under his fingers, warm only where he’d pressed himself against it. The afternoon sun reached no further than his knees. This comfort was temporary. “A match for the Matoba clan,” he began carefully, “--I didn’t think that was possible.”  
  
Matoba laughed and stepped closer into the light, hands slipping out of the sleeves to brush petals from the rail. “It happens. A head so long ago believed in betrayal as a way of power sharing. It was also a time when we carried swords and bows and worked as samurai. Most of those things are gone now, of course. This is one path we can’t change.”  
  
“I know the stories,” Natori said. He watched his gecko scrawl up the back of his hand, disappear into his robes.  
  
“Funny, that.” Matoba craned his neck, expression inscrutable. “You don’t discuss them with anyone.”  
  
Natori raised his eyebrows and shoved his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, fabric falling and bunching around his elbow. “I don’t care for gossip.”  
  
“It’s how you learn things. You think asking will always yield the correct information?”  
  
“We’re talking now, aren’t we?” And tiredly --  _aren’t you done giving me advice?_  
  
“Ask then,” Matoba said, eye narrowing dangerously, “while I’m getting some air.”   
  
He pressed forward and Natori stepped back, cursed himself for moving. Matoba took another. His hand reached out and grabbed Natori’s just above the wrist. He flipped it palm side up and leaned in close, breath warming his fingers. The movement carried his black hair over a shoulder and it grazed Natori’s arm on the way down, made him shiver and jerk -- like a summer not so long ago, when Seiji had regarded him over a swatch of field grass, eyes shuttered and crimson, and leaned over and threaded their fingers together.

A long line along the top of Seiji's palm, he'd thought he'd seen, half-asleep, like a blade had been drawn across his skin and marked him.  
  
Similar to now, except -- no. Natori breathed sharply through his nose. The top of Matoba’s head was level with his shoulder. That time was past. It was worlds away. What good was remembering?  
  
“Your life line was always short,” Matoba muttered, spreading Natori’s hand flat. “I could fix that.”  
  
Natori wheezed out a laugh, tried to remember the shape of a fist. “You failed to convince me when we were kids. What makes you think you can _now?_ ”  
  
Matoba traced the crease in his palm, middle finger blunt and calloused against the clammy skin. He was smiling. “You say that like it was so long ago. You’re nineteen.”  
  
“So what.” Natori pulled and Matoba held on, fingers sliding down his arm to settle at the base of his wrist. Natori couldn’t curl his fingers without catching hold of Matoba’s.  
  
“Fine, I’ll bite,” Natori sighed. The inked cloth stared back. “Your eye -- did it hurt?”  
  
“Imagine leaning in too close to a candle to blow it out,” he began, voice soft and slow. He pressed into the base of his thumb, making muscle ache that Natori recently forgotten could. The lines in his hand converged into a singular mess; unreadable for Matoba’s purpose -- which was what?  
  
“You can’t stare down a flame.”  
  
“Correct. It burns you.”  
  
He said nothing. Matoba’s fingers lined up right over the pulse in his wrist; Natori felt the thrum of it between their skin, one vulnerability exchanged for another.   
  
“Ask again,” Matoba remarked. He lifted his face away from Natori’s hand but didn’t let go, single crimson eye fixed against his own. Natori couldn’t hold his gaze for long and stared at a point thru and past him, stared at the way the sun turned glittery against the north wall, the light looping through the garden, the pond and the trees, the slope of the road just beyond.  
  
He swallowed. Considered. “Are you going to let yourself get worn down by duty?”  
  
“ _Duty_.” Matoba snorted. “Strange for you to say. You don’t know what that is.”  
  
“It’s what  _you_  think this is,” he snapped, watched Matoba’s lashes droop low.  
  
“True, it’s not a secret. I’m certain the Natori clan kept tabs on us, perhaps about as much as mine did centuries ago. You already know. Fictitious, to think I would be doing anything else.”  
  
“Right. Of course.” Natori yanked his hand back and Matoba’s grip released; whatever lines had once been strung between them chaffed and could not be soothed. Matoba still didn't seem to realize that asking only worked if he gave honest answers. What was the point in asking otherwise?  
  
Matoba slipped his fingers into his sleeves and stepped back, hem sweeping against his ankles. His smile faded, though it returned to its crooked shape soon enough, something almost like disappointment forming along the sweep of his mouth -- _unfair and unearned_ , Natori rallied. “Natori-san, you’re wasting time worrying over the small things. You always did have--”  
  
“Save it.” Natori sucked in a breath through his teeth, tried to focus on what he knew, what he could ascertain, the desperate fact of the moment: Matoba Seiji sought him out because -- because they knew each other? Because he was lonely? Because Natori would only ever register as a cheap threat on a board of them and that made him a safe fixture to turn to?  
  
(But he wondered, sometimes, what visions Matoba could have lead him to have -- if he’d said yes that day as children, if he’d admitted that a friendship could have been comfortable, if Seiji had been honest with his intent from the start, if he'd understood that someone with everything could still want more --  
  
_No._  Too many unknowns. There was no clear path to take, only what felt right and only what felt wrong, and how often did the too overlap in this world?

He was loathe to admit that Seiji had been right years ago, he _was_ weak, the wrongness had been with himself--)

Natori took several steps away, pressed his tongue against his cheek in thought. A trellis climbed two floors and ended above their heads, where purple flowers from a wisteria bloomed nauseous and sweet. Natori watched a bee land on a petal and crawl toward the stem, yellow pockets bulging. “Your garden is beautiful to look at,” he finally managed. “Aren’t you keeping your guests waiting though?”  
  
“I am,” Matoba said. He reached out to touch a slick, unopened bud. “These only bloom once a year though. A shame, as I quite like them. The clan who lived here before used to hand out cuttings at gatherings." He paused, then turned away. "Your garden is nicer though, Natori-san. You probably find this distasteful."  
  
The cluster slipped out of his fingers, bounced back into place, as if it had only been stirred by the breeze.  
  
Natori couldn’t respond quick enough to correct him, then realized it didn’t matter anyway.

   
  
  
  
  
In the hour after Matoba left, Natori crept down to the genkan to retrieve his shoes and slipped out along the gravel pathway. Blooms littered the path, crushed underfoot by party-goers and shiki alike. A youkai servant was lighting the tōrō when he passed, the sky just turning pale and crusted with yellow, and the lick of the flame burned black spots in his vision when he looked away again. The path through the trees was still and dark. The bird call was nearly gone.

Matoba had seen him leaving and Natori pretended he hadn't. He would have had to wave, or acknowledge him -- plays with roles that no longer fit. A few stragglers kept the man of the hour rooted in place though and Matoba lead the conversation further inside. Natori took his cue and escaped into the smothering warmth of the night. 

(He didn't want to know how far Matoba would chase him had he shown any hesitation at all. Some part of him said forever, and that part demanded he turn around, which he couldn't do, for _reasons_ , for many, many reasons-- reasons he listed and placed on the mental map of what he knew about Matoba Seiji, revisited when he strayed into Natori's side of things: that they had been destined to destroy each other, and that the folklorists had said it was so. It wasn't that he believed in fate or hadn't seen his fair share of upturned laws, it was just how their kind worked. That was all. He wasn't running. No, this was how he would stay alive, by floating above him, carefully out of reach.)  
  
In the end, Matoba never did voice what question he was supposed to ask. He was as elusive as he’d been as a boy, except for the glint in his eyes, now singular, he looked at Natori the same way. Curiously, then less so -- as if they were river watching, and something interesting had gone under and out of sight.  
  
It was just something Natori noticed.  
  
(Something else he noticed, that he entertained for far longer, at his loneliest, but would take significant blows to admit: he would always wonder whether Seiji had wanted him to stay when they were children, and wonder why he never had the courage to ask.  
  
Natori thinks he knows the answer. Matoba was not an open book, but he'd made his intentions clear: he wasn't giving up.

All he would have to do is  _go back--_ )

   
  
  
  
  
Natori waited at the bus stop for not very long.  
  
When he checked for yen bills in his pocket, the residue from the flowers he’d crushed in his earlier temper made his fingers stick against the paper. The doors opened and exhaled cool air in his face, the engine hummed and rattled. His palms fell to his sides.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
\--Come to think of it, Matoba’s hands always faced away from him these days.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The line Natori recalls on Seiji's palm is known as the masukake line, and is said to be the mark of a conqueror. For context: https://jpninfo.com/39193


End file.
